> Home | Tibet News | January 6th, 2005

24 Chinese mountaineers conquer Mt. Everest

Beijing, May 23 (PTI): A record 24 Chinese mountaineers and scientists on Sunday conquered Mt Everest, kicking off a state-of-the-art effort to re-measure the world's highest peak and the most comprehensive scientific studies on the effect of global warming in the Himalayan region.

The expedition, which spent 77-minutes at the peak, scaled the earth's highest peak and successfully performed measuring operations, the expedition headquarters announced.

This is the second measurement endeavour undertaken by the Chinese over the past three decades. The first measurement done by Chinese in 1975 reported the height of the world's top mountain at 8,848.13 meters above sea level.

The team erected a 2.5-meter-long survey beacon and establishing a global positioning system (GPS) monitoring station there for height measurement in the next two days and in the future. The researchers and mountaineers also used a radar device to detect the thickness of the snow and ice coat of Mount Qomolangma (the Chinese name for Mt. Everest), which straddles the border between China and Nepal.

The final result of the current measurement will exclude the thickness of ice and snow capping the peak, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The GPS and radar device, used for the first time by Chinese surveyors, are for a more precise result. The traditional trigonometric levelling method, which was used in the 1975 expedition, however, is still used in this mission for results comparison.

If successful, the survey expedition will become the first to determine the location of the peak's rock formation with the most advanced technology in the world, a researcher said.